Tracy Barrett

Tracy Barrett is an American author of children’s books and young adult novels. She has published twenty-three books for young readers and one for adults.

Tracy Barrett
Barrett in 2025
Born	Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Author, collegiate lecturer, researcher
Alma mater	Brown University (BA) University of California, Berkeley (MA) (Ph.D)
Period	1999-present
Genre	historical fiction, nonfiction, mystery, fantasy
Notable works	Anna of Byzantium The Sherlock Files
Website
tracybarrett.com

Early life and education

Tracy Barrett was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but grew up just outside New York City, New York. She holds degrees from Brown University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Career

Barrett served as a senior lecturer of Italian language and civilization at Vanderbilt University from 1984 to 2012.^[1]

Barrett is best known for her historical young adult novel, Anna of Byzantium, a fictionalized retelling of the life of Princess Anna Comnena in medieval Byzantium.^[2]

She is also the author of the Sherlock Files series, which follows the adventures of two young descendants of Holmes as they solve his cold cases.^[3]

Selected works

• Anna of Byzantium, Laurel Leaf, 1999
• The Trail of Tears: An American Tragedy, Perfection Learning Corporation, 2000
• Cold in Summer, Henry Holt and Co., 2003
• On Etruscan Time, Henry Holt and Co., 2005
• King of Ithaka, Henry Holt and Co., 2010
• Dark of the Moon, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011
• The Stepsister's Tale, Harlequin Teen, 2014^[4]
• The Song of Orpheus, CreateSpace, 2016
• Marabel and the Book of Fate (Little, 2018)
• Freefall Summer, Charlesbridge Teen, 2018

The Sherlock Files

• The 100-Year-Old Secret, Henry Holt and Co., 2008
• The Beast of Blackslope, Henry Holt and Co., 2009
• The Case that Time Forgot, Henry Holt and Co., 2010
• The Missing Heir, Henry Holt and Co., 2011